


sing it one last time

by 1000_directions



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Hero Worship, M/M, Unrequited Crush, X Factor Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-28 23:25:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16732638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000_directions/pseuds/1000_directions
Summary: you've been the only thing that's right





	sing it one last time

**Author's Note:**

> Contains X Factor spoilers. Absolutely DO NOT share this with Louis or Brendan or anyone associated with the X Factor.

_How many chances does one person get in this life?_ Brendan asks himself, time and time again. He wonders this at sixteen, when Louis Walsh puts him in a boyband and makes all his dreams come true, and he wonders this again at twenty when they break up. This was his shot at music, and he isn't good enough, and he never went to college, never went to uni, and that's all his chances used up, he supposes.

But as one thing ends, another always starts, a tricky sort of magic that always catches him right before he crashes, one close call after another. He's selected to represent Ireland at Eurovision, and _this_ is his shot, _this_ is his chance, and he's lucky to have this chance. And then that doesn't work out either. And so it's plumbing for him, he has to learn a trade like his dad. And he meets a girl, and he finds a job, and he makes some mates, and he acquires all these little pieces of his life, all these little tokens that say he's here, he's existing on the earth at this moment. And he goes about his days, one after the other, and he pretends that this is his life. But all day long, all he ever thinks about, whether he's digging a ditch or licking between his girlfriend’s thighs, all he hears in his ears is the sound he's going to make later when he's singing by himself. He's all out of chances, but no one can take that away from him. No matter what, he can close his eyes and open his mouth and make music out of nothing at all. No matter what.

And the X Factor is going to be his last chance. His _real_ last chance, this time, just like all the other last chances were supposed to be. And then his song choice is bollocks, and it seems like he’s sabotaged himself before he even gets anywhere, seems like it's all over, again, like they're going to send him home. And then Simon Cowell (Simon bloody _Cowell_ ) gives him a new song to sing, and if Simon Cowell can believe in him, maybe that's a chance, maybe this is a sign.

And Louis Tomlinson (Louis flippin’ Tomlinson! From One Direction!) comes backstage, and he puts his right hand on Brendan’s left shoulder and smiles at him, and he says something encouraging that Brendan can barely focus on, because Louis’ thumb is digging reassuringly into the tense muscle of his shoulder, and Louis’ shirt says ‘No matter how hard you try you can’t stop me now,’ and Brendan focuses on that, focuses on the release of his tension under Louis’ hand, focuses on the message of his shirt, and it’s a sign, it’s a chance, he was made for something more than plumbing. He’s Brendan Murray, and he’s going to take every chance he can get his hungry hands on.

And he makes it through auditions, and he makes it through Six Chair Challenge, and Louis presses that golden buzzer, and he gets through Judges Houses, and he’s just been getting through, chance after chance, song after song after sing-off after song, and he doesn’t know how he’s still even here but he’s going to grab on and do whatever it takes.

“I don’t want to be in a boyband,” he confesses to Louis early on. “I was in one once, and I don’t want to do anything like that anymore.”

“That’s fine, lad,” Louis says, tilting his head. “You’re talking to the right person. We’ll do something else with you.”

Louis is deceptively slender, like a girl. Brendan had thought he was slight, just a wisp of nothing, but it’s really that the jumpers he wears are so big that they make him look slimmer than he is. There is a solidness to Louis, and Brendan learns that early on, because Louis is very physical in his affection, and Louis is very, very affectionate.

“I’m so proud of you,” Louis tells Brendan, every single day, a dozen times a day. His arms wrap around Brendan like a cape, and Brendan sinks into that embrace, sinks deep into that praise like a bath, like it will make him cleaner and better. Simon doesn’t like his song choices, doesn’t understand who he is as an artist. He’s been towards the the bottom for what feels like ages now. But Louis is proud of him, and that will wash away everything else. It has to.

Brendan isn’t so sure about the hugging at first, doesn’t know what to make of it. People from Twitter keep telling him that Louis is gay, that Louis has a boyfriend, that Brendan shouldn’t touch him so much. But Louis doesn’t have any boyfriend that Brendan’s ever met, and his girlfriend Eleanor is lovely, just top-rate. And Louis offers his hugs freely, and Brendan isn’t taking anything he’s not supposed to have. He isn’t crossing a line, no matter what anyone says.

Brendan’s mates back home don’t hug each other like that. His parents hug him, and his girlfriend hugs him, but he and the lads aren’t like that. Girls are like that with their friends, he knows. They all see it, and they all tease the girls at the end of the night when they’re pairing off. The girls hug each other like they’ll never see each other again, and it’s a laugh for all of them. If the boys could see him now, he wonders what they would say.

Hugging Louis is not like hugging his dad, nor like hugging his girlfriend. There’s a comfort to his touch. A redemption. It’s so much to be seen by someone who believes in him. He loves Louis in a way that he’s never loved anyone before. He’s so grateful just to be here.

It’s tricky, at first, to understand where he fits in. He can’t sing as well as Dalton, it’s just the truth that he can’t. And he doesn’t have the special bond with Louis that Anthony has. And some of the other people in the house…. It’s not that they don’t work hard. Everyone’s working hard. Everyone wants to be there and is giving it their all. But Brendan wakes up first, every single day. And he listens to hundreds of songs, writing out dozens of titles that he thinks Louis should hear, sometimes because it’s a song he wants to sing and sometimes because he just thinks Louis might like it for itself. And he runs scales, and he practises, and he picks out little melodies on his guitar, and he wonders if he can be an artist someday. Some of them are trying to sing on the telly for as long as they can, and some of them are trying to turn themselves into something that people might want to buy someday, and he doesn’t know quite which he’s doing, so he tries to be both. He tries to be both.

He realises what he is to Louis soon enough. After the sing-off, when the possibility of going home is so close that it’s breathing against his lips, just a kiss away, just a kiss away, Louis comes to him after and wraps him up in those arms, tight biceps straining against his jumper sleeves, and he pushes his mouth right against Brendan’s ear, and he murmurs, “You’re my little fighter, aren’t you?”

Yes. Yes, he is.

Louis tells him about his own time on the X Factor, about never feeling good enough, never feeling worthy, and how that made him work harder.

“If nothing else,” Louis tells him after one rehearsal, “do it out of spite. Imagine Simon’s face when you fookin’ nail it this week. Just picture that, mate. Do it for me.”

And he does, and he does, and he does.

Louis is gay, fans keep telling him. Louis is with Harry, fans keep telling him. He’s never even met Harry, and when he asks Louis about it, he rolls his eyes and snorts around his cigarette and says, “Don’t worry about them. It’s not even worth explaining it.”

And Brendan keeps singing, keeps chasing the idea of the artist he wants to be, and Louis is right there to guide him the whole time. He owes him so much. He owes him everything. He loves Louis so much that he begins to wonder if he’s being fair to everyone else in his life. This is who he is now. This is what he’s going to be when he grows up. He’s going to keep singing, and he’s going to keep making Louis proud, no matter where this takes him.

He breaks up with girlfriend out of fairness to her, really. It’s not fair for her to sit home waiting for him when he’s hoping to never be home again.

“Some girls won’t understand,” Louis says to him later, when Brendan fills him in. “Some girls just aren’t going to understand what your life is like now. But you only need to find one who does.”

Brendan wonders if anyone would be able to understand his life. He barely does, and he’s the one living it.

He used to go to work and spend all day thinking about what he was going to sing. Now, he sings, and he sings, and he sings. Thinking about what he is going to sing is the work. He doesn’t ever want it to end.

And then.

It was a lovely fantasy, wasn’t it? It was so lovely to think that he had so many chances left, that life would give him just one more. But he’s all out, it seems. And there are three acts standing on stage, and two of them are going to go home. And he knows before Dermot says it. He knows he’s gone.

(Of course, he thought he’d known it before, and he was safe then. Maybe he’ll be safe now, too?)

(No. No, he won’t.)

(And he knows it before Dermot says it, but Christ, does it sting anyway.)

And all he can think is, _Does this mean I have to go to work on Monday? In two days, do I have to go back to work?_

Louis is hugging Anthony, because Anthony got through, and Anthony is exuberant with it, like Brendan would have been if it had been him. But it wasn’t him. So Anthony expands, and Brendan shrinks.

And then Louis’ attention is on him, maybe for the last time? And holding that thought in his mind sucks all the air out of the room, the idea that maybe this will be the last time that Louis touches him. The last time Louis believes in him. If Louis is never proud of him ever again, what is he supposed to do? How can he bear that?

Louis has one soft hand on each of his cheeks, he’s holding Brendan’s face in his hands, and Brendan closes his eyes and feels that touch, that maybe last touch. And then he realises that Louis is waiting for his attention, so he opens his eyes and lets Louis know that he’s listening.

“This is not the end,” Louis is saying, even though it is. It is the end. Brendan tries to shake his head, but it’s caught in Louis’ hands.

“Listen,” Louis is saying, and he looks into Brendan’s eyes carefully, like he’s going to say one thing with his mouth and a different thing with his eyes, and it’s up to Brendan to figure out what the overlapping parts are.

“Listen,” Louis says again.

“I’m listening,” Brendan says, and then Louis pulls him in tight for a hug, one hand slung low on Brendan’s back, his thumb digging into the flesh where Brendan’s shirt has risen up.

“Listen to me carefully, lad,” Louis says. He has his mouth right against Brendan’s ear now, and his breath is warm. “Simon and me. We’ve talked about you. It’s not over for you, you hear me? He’s had his eye on you from the start, and he’s going to sign you once this all settles down. I swear it. He promised me he would do that for you.”

“Are you going to be there?” Brendan asks. His voice is muffled, his mouth pressed to Louis’ shoulder. He wonders if he’s getting spit on Louis’ clothing, which he knows is designer, knows is worth more than anything he’s ever owned. Louis bought him clothing from Burberry for his birthday, and he’s scared to even take it out of the box for fear of ruining it.

“I’ll be there,” Louis says. He’s got a hand on the back of Brendan’s neck. His fingers are ruffling Brendan’s hair. It’s how a girlfriend would touch a boyfriend. It’s intimate, and Louis’ voice kisses his ear, says, “I’ll be there with you the whole time. I’m going to take care of you, lad.”

Brendan shuts his eyes tight, and he feels Louis’ embrace with his entire body, and he lets the disappointment and the hope and the fear all mix together, loud and fighting for his attention, so many emotions at once that he can barely stand it.

And he hopes, and he hopes, and he hopes for one more chance.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr post](http://1000-directions.tumblr.com/post/180464971969/sing-it-one-last-time-by-1000directions-brendan)


End file.
